


Broken Pieces

by LycanLover



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, TW fanfic contest piece, that I totally forgot to post
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-09
Updated: 2012-12-09
Packaged: 2017-11-20 17:46:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LycanLover/pseuds/LycanLover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He tries to pick up the pieces of his life, but he can't find it in himself to put them back together. He packs them away instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Pieces

He didn't think that he'd see this particular house so full of boxes again so soon. They hadn't even made it a year. And it wasn't because of lack of business like all the other times. A gun salesman only lasted so long. Or even that they'd run the monsters out of town.

No, this time they were the ones doing the running. His family had been decimated. They were gone, either dead or so lost in a depression they could hardly pull themselves out of bed. His beautiful daughter had finally crashed from riding her wave of anger and revenge.

Chris Argent paused as he finally looked down at one of the pictures he'd been packing. For the last ten minutes he'd been able to stop himself from turning them over and staring at the only thing he had left of his whole family. The heavy silver frame was familiar in a way that one would often overlook it, the thing had been around for so long. With steady hands that only came from years of dealing with adrenaline and fear, Chris flipped it over and gazed down.

Victoria had been so modest that day, but Chris could still see the pride and happiness in her eyes as she clung tightly to their daughter. Chris would have been happy to have a son or a daughter, but he knew that Victoria had hoped a girl. She had wanted so badly, though she never said it, to have a daughter to pass her grandmother's name on to. Allison.

"How did things go so damned wrong?" Chris whispered. He sighed and wrapped the photo gently in paper before adding it to the box full of happy memories. He wondered if he'd ever get the chance to add any more to it. If he'd want to.

He briefly considered tracking his father down, see his corpse for himself. The only thing that kept him from doing so was the recent lose of his sister and then his wife. He figured God, or whoever it was that was working their damnedest to make him suffer would have to deal with his chosen ignorance. Gerard had ignored him, chose to focus on his sister and leave Chris’ own training to his mother.

It should have been the other way, but Gerard was nothing if not a control freak. His wife hadn't led by force of will like so many Argent women before her. She'd chosen a husband to take her last name and in consequence, ruin their family. Chris couldn't hate her for her weakness though, she had raised him to follow the code, to make sure the next generation of Argent women were strong. She knew her own daughter was a lost cause. Chris hadn't thought so. How could his baby sister be dangerous?

He certainly found out.

He wandered into the kitchen after checking in yet again on his daughter. Allison was still locked in her room like she had been all week. After Scott left, Chris had held her while she fell apart.

"Everything is going to be okay," he'd whispered. "We'll make it."

"Make what?” She’s sniffled and pulled away then. “We're all that's left!"

Chris had flinched at the reminder, squeezing his eyes shut so he wouldn't have to look at the room his wife had killed herself in. It probably wasn’t her best idea, and it certainly wasn’t healthy for Allison.

Pushing back the memory and phantom feel of helping shove the knife into Victoria's chest, Chris had pulled Allison back tighter into his arms. He held on so tightly, wishing that the feel of her there, safe if not shattered, would make the rising pain and resignation fade. 

It didn't. How could he feel better when he'd let her be broken in the first place? He was so used to hating werewolves, to thinking of them as animals. He hadn't even tried to convince his wife to live. She had been determined to die, to not become one of them. Victoria had never been one to see things from any point of view but her own. In a way, Chris had known he would have been fighting a loosing battle and in turn making everyone think he was weak. Being a hunter was a risk, and suicide was as common a killer in them as being rendered apart by the things they hunted.

He never wanted that for Allison. She didn't deserve to feel that kind of hatred and Chris could only hate himself more for not stopping it when he had the chance. He could have sent her away as soon as his father showed up on his doorstep. Victoria had been adamant that she stay near by though, where she could keep an eye on her. There was no one she trusted with her child’s safety, except herself and Chris.

"We'll have to build up again."

Allison had pulled away from him then, glaring as she asked, "How can you build something steady and sane on a pile of bones and hate? Because that's all we have! We don't have anyo--"

Chris had left her then as she yanked away again, collapsing to the bed in another fit of tears. He really didn't know how to help here. She's always been his little girl. His strong, independent little Allison. He knew that when she found out the truth it would break her.

Now he had to sew all the pieces back together.

Pulling himself from his memories, Chris noticed he had a more imminent problem. As there seemed to be a contingent of werewolves in his backyard. Setting aside the glass he was about to wrap and pack, he pulled the handgun out from under the edge of the counter. He didn't know why they were there. Had Derek finally snapped and gone feral too? Warping what sense was left in his head into wiping out the last of the family that had taken his own? Chris spotted Peter hanging behind and it took everything to push back to fear so they wouldn't smell it. If Derek was listening to the insane former Alpha, their chances were even smaller at getting out of Beacon Hills alive.

"Derek." He closed the back door quietly, not wanting to alert Allison to the situation.

At least Derek wasn’t flashing his fangs at him. In fact, he stood there silently, measuring Chris up on his back porch.

After several minutes, and Chris quickly taking stock of his yard and spotting one other Beta lurking behind a tree, Derek spoke.

"I'm here to repay a debt."

Chris nearly said that they didn't own each other anything, but he figured if Derek was going to give him some information for free... Why would he pass that rare opportunity up?

"Derek--" Peter started, but he tilted his chin up and backed away a few paces when Derek snarled at him over his shoulder. "Fine. I don't see the point, but whatever."

"Shut up."

Chris always did have mixed feelings watching wolves fight amongst themselves. It could either mean less work for him as they'd destroy themselves, or more when the infighting led to a pack splitting and starting a territory war between the fractions. With the way Peter backed down, Chris guessed there was a bit of time before the last two remaining Hales fought for dominance. Again.

"Listen, I'm only saying this once. There's a group that's encroaching on my territory, and I will be dealing with them. You should just know that they probably won't take kindly to any hunters who happen to be in the area."

"More werewolves then." Chris shook his head. It seemed he was right about leaving. Get while the getting was good, as his mother used to say. "I’d say thanks for the warning, but we're heading out anyways."

"Don't you even want to know what--" Peter sighed when Derek interrupted him with an echoing growl. "I'm just trying to--"

"I know what you're trying to do." Derek glared until Peter held his hands up and looked away.

"Wolves fight each other for territory all the time," Chris said. "I'm not surprised someone is trying to take you over." He shrugged when Derek's glare turned on him. "Honestly, Derek, you're a young Alpha with a known backstabbing former Alpha and one Beta in your pack. I’d ask where are the other two are, but it doesn't really matter. You left them in my father’s tender care long enough to probably break their allegiance to you. There'll be more hunters to come to town once we leave. Let them die trying to take all of you on. I have no desire to see the last of my family wiped out."

"So you're running?" Derek asked.

"Surviving," Chris corrected. "Like you did when you ran off to who knows where after the fire."

"I don't blame him. The Alpha pack is no--"

Peter flew across the yard, clipping the corner of the house and landing in the rose bushes Victoria had planted not a week after they'd moved in.

Chris raised an eyebrow at Derek as he straightened. "Next time, _uncle,_ I'll aim for the garden."

As silly as it sounded, Chris knew it was a real threat considering the numerous types of aconite they had growing there, hidden in rows of other plants. He paused when Peter's words rolled over in his head. "Alphas? As in the roaming pack that have nasty habit of tearing smaller packs apart?" 

"Yes," Derek said, his jaw clenched so tightly the word was barely gritted out from between his teeth.

Chris couldn't help but move down the stairs, closer to the werewolves he'd worked beside not a week ago. "I hear that's their twisted way of recruiting."

"It is!"

"Shut. Up!"

Peter had managed to pull himself out of the tangle of thorns, his clothes torn and edged in blood. "Look, you won't listen to me about this because you're scared. I get it."

"I'm not scared."

"You should be," Chris said. "They've been responsible for innumerable packs being wiped away."

"Which is why," Peter continued, "the hunters haven't taken them out yet. They can't seem to build themselves up large enough threat to be a 'world wide' issue, and they take out plenty of new packs before they can start any trouble. Win, win."

"Honest truth?" Chris shook his head at them. If they came to warn him, the least he could do was return the favor. Derek hadn’t really owed him anything to begin with. "We haven't had the numbers to do it. Older families only trust a select few, and the young or independent ones don't trust anyone. Good luck finding a group big enough to last more than an hour against them. If that."

Derek glared at Peter until he edged his way back to the tree the silent Beta was still half hiding behind. "We'll be ready," Derek said in parting.

"You'll try."

Chris waited until he couldn't see them anymore until he went back inside and hurried to the office. On the way there, he passed the living room and stopped.

Allison was slowly pulling the paper off the last picture he'd packed. Her eyes were still glassy and red rimmed, but when she smiled down at the photo taken on the day of her birth, Chris felt the heaviness that had been weighing on his heart ease some.

"When did you come down?"

"Ten minutes ago." She ran her jagged, bitten nails over the glass. "While you were outside with the pack."

Chris sighed, moving into the room and taking the photo and setting it aside. He cupped her cheek and asked, "What did you hear?"

"Everything."

"Don't be scared," Chris said. "We're leaving so--" 

"No!" Allison pushed away from him, her eyes darting everywhere except at her father.

"Why not?" Chris knew how he raised his daughter. She was normally very smart, very levelheaded. Until pain and anger and revenge clouded her judgement. Everything that happened with the Kanima and the betrayal of her grandfather had reopened Allison's eyes. He could see it now.

She started at the antique knife set that was mounted to the wall. "We have to fix what we broke. We can't abandon them. We're hunters that hunt those that hunt us. The Alpha pack has been running around for years unchecked." She turned and met Chris' blue eyes. "We're the last of the Argents. We've lived through it all. Let's show them why."

That night, she and Chris began the tedious task of unpacking.

**Author's Note:**

> Piece written for the TW fic contest back in September. I'm a little late...


End file.
